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This chapter explains how the Woking Muslim Mission (WMM) established a new, distinctly twentieth-century version of Islam in England, one that fostered hybridity between “East” and “West” on multiple levels and celebrated the diversity of believers that that body could attract as a result of its location in the English metropole. According to its founders, the fact that people from a variety of religious, racial, cultural and linguistic backgrounds participated in mosque events in Woking and/or declared themselves to be Muslims through the WMM’s international publication testified to the universality of Islam. The chapter describes how Muslims from India drew from both their own religious writings and practices, on the one hand, and certain British liberal and imperial traditions, on the other, in order to develop a system of meaning that made possible the creation of the WMM in 1913. It then explains how, in the following year, when the outbreak of the First World War and British–Ottoman conflict within it threatened the organization’s ability to continue its work in England, its leaders and other supporters elaborated upon their existing ideology of imperial intersection by calling attention to the ways that Islam could contribute to the war effort, focusing on the importance of the British Muslim soldier. By serving the religious needs of those men during a time of crisis, the WMM succeeded in solidifying its place in English society. As a result, it emerged from the war as both a base and a model for future missionary activity in the British Isles and Europe.
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